Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Quran

I lie Great Boole:? ol Islamic C i\ il i/.at ion

Imam Jalal-al-DIn Abd al-Rahman al-Suyuti

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THE PERFECT GUIDE
TO THE SCIENCES

of the Qur’an

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Al-ltqan ft Ulum al-Quran

Translated by Muneer Fareed

Muhammad bln Hamad Al-Thani Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilisation

in Association with Car net Publishing

AhleSunnah Library ( nrnusba.wordpress.com )

Draft

INTRODUCTION

The work before you, some twenty chapters of excerpts from Jalal ‘1-Din ‘1-Suyuti’s ‘l-Itqanfi
'Ulum al-Qur’an, is a translation of what this celebrated polymath considered indispensable
linguistic and stylistic tools for comprehending the meanings of the Koran. Whilst the
translation itself is to my knowledge unprecedented, the use of Itqan material as such in modern
studies of the Koran is not, the most significant being that of Theodore Noldeke’s still
invaluable, Geschichte des Qoran . 1 And whilst the Itqan is rightly described both as an
invaluable “introduction to the critical study of the Koran”“, as well as “a monumental synthesis
of the quranic sciences” its greater value would seem to lie in the as yet fledgling area of higher
critical studies of the Koran. Arkoun might well have had just this in mind when he complained
of an “epistemological myopia” common to both western as well as Islamic scholars who
hesitate in applying modem linguistic tools such as narrative analysis or semiology to the
Koran. 4 To this category, I would suggest, belong those traditionalists, for whom Koranic
studies ventures not beyond the search for even greater literary clarity and thematic coherence in
the Koran; this includes those Arabists, who — when not involved in some translation —
perpetuate their convention of trying to isolate and define Islamic society, or the Arab mind, or

1 Theodor Noldeke Geschichte des Qorans (Hildesheim, 1961) 3 vols. This is particularly true of the second half of
the first volume which rearranges the chapters chronologically, the second volume in its entirety, which examines
the historicity of the collected material itself , and much of the third volume, which examines its variant readings, its
paleography, and its aesthetics.

2 Nicholson, Reynold, A Literary History of the Arabs New Delhi 2004. p.45

3 McAuliffe, Jane Dammen p.6 Some have outlined both its strengths as well as its weaknesses: Arthur Jeffrey,
Materials for the History of the Text of the Koran in The Koran: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies ed. Colin
Turner New York 2004. s’ .156for instance, writing on the textual history of the Koran calls the Itqan a “great
compendium of Muslim Koranic Sciences” but one that nonetheless, contains little information on textual history.
Jeffrey, Arthur Materials for the History of the Text of the Koran in The Koran: Critical Concepts in Islamic
Studies ed. Colin Turner New York 2004. .156

4 Mohammed Arkoun Lecture du Coran (L’Islam d’hier et d’aujourd’hui) xxxiii, 175 pp. Paris, 1982. Also see,

Pour une critique de la raison islamique, Paris, 1984

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the oriental temperament; and of late, it has come to include revisionists, who, having cast grave
doubts on the authenticity of the traditional texts and even on the canonization of the Koran itself
then turn around and selectively use those very texts to make their point!

Inasmuch as western studies of the Koran differ in their approach to traditional source materials,
and in the methodologies they each bring to bear on the study of such materials, they nonetheless
share one feature which sets them apart from traditional approaches: they all ask questions which
go beyond the Koran itself to the very Sitz im Leben of the faith itself. So, in seeking answers to
questions about the origins of the sacred text, for instance, they implicitly ask not just when
canonization occurred, or how outside religious strains are entwined in the Koranic narrative,
but also which milieu most influenced its overall message. Muslim scholars accept as their
working principle the Koran’s ontological claims whereas non Muslims reject the claim itself as
being outside the purview of academic inquiry. For secular academics this poses a dilemma
because their only bridge to Islam’s past is through material collected by early Muslim scholars
who made no distinction between material that was purely historical and that which was salvific.
The historiographical material of traditional Muslim scholarship has served as source material
for both the standard Muslim narrative as well as the bulk of secular western studies on Islam
and Muslims but with differences in approach. For traditional Islamic research, in their details
the six authentic works on apostolic traditions (the sihah sitta) are authentic and more than
adequate; for what they lack in historiographical rigor is more than provided by the
comparatively less authentic historical works of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767 c.e.) and Tabari. As for
western historians, for whom such material was largely evidentiary, what the texts said about the
milieu in which early Islam developed was more important than the scrutiny to which their
transmission was put. More important to them, therefore, were questions that asked, to what

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